Three-dimensional geographic information systems, such as Google Earth by Google Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., may allow users to view three-dimensional representations of buildings for select cities around the world. For example, using the Google Earth software, a user can navigate to New York, N.Y. and view a three-dimensional representation of most city buildings and popular landmarks.
Three-dimensional representations of buildings displayed by Google Earth may be automatically generated based on images taken by satellite at various angles. These representations allow users to view the general structure of a building, but may lack specific details for a particular building.
To display a more accurate representation of a particular building, a user may create a textured three-dimensional model of a building using a computer-aided design tool, such as Google Building Maker tool or a SketchUp tool, also by Google Inc. of Mountain View, Calif. Google Building Maker allows an individual user to create a three-dimensional representation of a building in the Google Earth software, and may allow a user to specify more detail than in an automatically generated model presently included by the Google Earth software. User generated representations may be stored in a database, such as the Google 3D Warehouse.
Once a user creates a more detailed representation of a building, it may be desirable to include it in the Google Earth three-dimensional world. This may be done by replacing the user generated model with the automatically generated model. However, Google Earth may utilize a single automatically generated model to represent an entire block of buildings in a city, while other models, such as a user generated model, may represent a small but well-defined portion of that block, such as an individual building or a quarter of a block. These two models cannot both be published at the same time in their original non-modified state. However, the smaller model may often be of better quality and may also correspond with a well defined business, placemark, or landmark. Thus, the GIS may either show a large, worse-quality, less detailed block, or show a single, better-quality, more detailed portion of a block in isolation.